Introduction This is a short post taking a stance on programmatic ad platforms. It’s based on one single premise: Digital convergence will lead into a situation where all ad spend, not only digital, will be managed through self-service, open ad platforms that operate based on auction principles There are several reasons as to why this […]
Tag: Google Adwords
A major change in AdWords – How to react?
Introduction Google has made a major change in AdWords. Ads are now shown only in the main column, no longer in the right column. Previously, there were generally speaking eight ads per SERP. For some queries, Google didn’t show ads at all, and additionally they’ve been constantly testing the limit, e.g. running up to 16 product listing […]
Online ad platforms’ leeching logic
We had a great discussion with Mr. Lauri Pitkänen about unfair advantage in business – e.g., a gift card company’s business model relying on people not redeeming gift cards, investment banker’s relying on monopoly to take 7% of each new IPO, doctor’s controlling how many new doctor’s are educated, taxi driver’s keeping the supply low […]
A Few Interesting Digital Analytics Problems… (And Their Solutions)
Introduction Here’s a list of analytics problems I’ve devised for a class I was teaching a digital analytics course (Web & Mobile Analytics, Information Technology Program) at Aalto University in Helsinki. Some solutions to them are also considered. The problems Last click fallacy = taking only the last interaction into account when analayzing channel or campaign performance (a […]
Using the VRIN model to evaluate web platforms
Introduction In this article, I discuss how the classic VRIN model can be used to evaluate modern web platforms. What is the VRIN model? It’s one of the most cited models of the resource-based view of the firm. Essentially, it describes how a firm can achieve sustainable competitive advantage through resources that fulfill certain criteria. These […]
The Digital Marketing Brief – four things to ask your client
Recently I had an email correspondence with one my brightest digital marketing students. He asked for advice on creating an AdWords campaign plan. I told him the plan should include certain elements, and only them (it’s easy to make a long and useless plan, and difficult to do it short and useful). Anyway, in the […]
Assessing the scalability of AdWords campaigns
Introduction Startups, and why not bigger companies, too, often test marketing channels by allocating a small budget to each channel, and then analyzing the results (e.g. CPA, cost per action) per channel. This is done to determine a) business potential and b) channel potential. The former refers to how lucrative it is to acquire customers […]
A simple formula for assessing the feasibility of AdWords cases
Update [24th March, 2017]: In addition to the formula explained in the post, I would add the following general criteria for a good AdWords case: 1) Low-Medium competition (high CPCs force to look for alternative channels), 2) Good website/landing pages (i.e., load fast, easy to navigate, have text information relevant to the keywords. Introduction Google […]
How to calculate metrics for an AdWords campaign plan
I teach this very simple formula to my students when they are required to write a pre-campaign report for the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC). You want to report metrics in a table like this: budget ctr cpc clicks impressions 250 0,05 0,2 […]
Bugs and problems in Facebook Ads [UPDATED 10/08/2016]
Introduction I’ve been doing a lot of Facebook advertising. Compared to Google AdWords, Facebook Ads is missing a lot of features, and has annoying bugs. I’m listing these problems here, in case anyone working at Facebook would like to have an advertiser’s opinion, and that people working with programmatic ad platforms see how difficult it […]